Velvet Mafia?

[Fuzz]

Just flipped to CNN for a second during a commercial while watching the Yankee/Tiger game. There was a promo for the 10 pm show and John Roberts used the term "Velvet Mafia" to describe gay republican staffers who may be covering up the sexual preferences of republicans in the congress.

Velvet Mafia? lol and wtf?

[CatWoman]

1. Wonkette used that term to describe them earlier this week

on Scarborough Country. :rofl:

i kinda like it :)

[MADem]

2. Yep, it's coming up ...in the next Ow-Ah!!!

It's the "gay mafia" on the Hill, so Roberts says....it's not a new term, I guess, though I haven't really heard it before--it seems to refer to the casting couch in this instance:

http://www.signorile.com/articles/nyp34.html Truth is, many gay men will tell you that there most certainly is a Hollywood/media gay mafia-using that term or its synonym, "the velvet mafia"-whether or not they are members themselves. It’s made up of men such as DreamWorks cochair David Geffen and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, plus many more well-known and lesser-known individuals. They are men of a certain generation and status who travel together, throw swanky parties and introduce young beautiful things to one another. In other words, it’s no different from the straight male mafia in Hollywood, where the casting couch for actresses is practically an institution.

Wikipedia says it can be a discriminatory outfit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_Mafia

The Gay Mafia or Velvet Mafia is a term for a supposed group of powerful gay people, usually men, who use their influence to further their own goals and those of other gays, while excluding or actively working against non-gay people.<1> It has been described as a conspiracy theory similar to that which supposed that Jews were a "a diabolical group that was consolidating power everywhere from the banking industry to Hollywood."<2> "Gay Mafia" and "Velvet Mafia" are also used humorously by gay people themselves. The term was widely used in the 1980s and 1990s, and could often be seen in the pages of the New York Post.

And apparently CBS beat CNN on this story:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_10/009656.php

THE VELVET MAFIA....Did a "velvet mafia" of gay congressional aides protect Mark Foley for years? That's what CBS News reported last night:

One senior House Republican tells CBS that there's a lot of anger at what he describes as "a network of gay staffers and gay members who protect each other and did the speaker a disservice."

In fact, David Corn says there's even a list circulating that names names.

What to make of this? Here's a wild guess. I suspect that some low-wattage GOP staffer has made a huge miscalculation, figuring that this disclosure would do a few things. First, it would take some pressure off Dennis Hastert and place it instead on a bunch of gay guys. And we know all about them, don't we? Second, it would reassure the Christian right that this is a gay thing, not a Republican thing. The party just needs to clean house and everything will be fine. Third, if they can manage to get some liberal site to make this list public, it will help them promote the Limbaugh/Hannity storyline that this whole affair is just a dirty trick by Democrats who have known about Foley all along but waited to spring the news until a few weeks before an election.

Does that make any sense? It doesn't to me, but I really can't figure out a motivation here that does. To the Christian right base, the idea that the Republican party has been infiltrated by a gay mafia will do nothing but disgust them, keeping them away from the polls in droves. To everyone else, watching the the GOP resurrect its tried-and-true gay-bashing formula to divert attention from its own failings will seem revolting. There's literally no one who will react well to this.

But why else float this trial balloon? Was it a completely instinctive lashing out? Or is there some subtler game being played that I can't figure out? Anybody have any ideas?